Donald C. Collins
e-mail collinsd1@sfusd.edu
website www.donaldcollins.org.
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Donald C. Collins e-mail collinsd1@sfusd.edu website www.donaldcollins.org.
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ABOUT THIS SITE
This site has information on legal and business issues affecting amateur sports, and issues affecting sports officials and officials' associations. This information is set out in over 60 articles written by Donald C. Collins. This site also has a comprehensive sportsmanship index.
Click on your area of interest on the menu bar on the left
For the latest information, see "What's New" on this page
WHAT'S NEW!
If you're an official and you're moving to a new state, you need a quick way to reach your new state's Officials' Association. Visit the Officials Page and click on "Links to National and State Officials' Organizations"
"Take It Like A Man:" The words of a New York coach, asking to be sued for 5 million dollars. Remember, 'tis far better to apply first aid than to disparage the athlete whose finger is broken in three places. See "Take It Like A Man" by Edmund DeMarche, New York Post.
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2009-10 High School Injury Data Is In. See 2009-10 Center For Injury Research and Policy's National High School Sports-Related Injury Surveillance Study and
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4-Day Week - Will it Help School/Sports? The down economy has led some school districts to discuss four-day work weeks. How does this impact sports? Pelican Rapids High School in Minnesota has just started the four-day week, and their athletic staff has some interesting observations. See 4-Day Week "Little Effect" On PR Athletics by John George, Fergus Falls (MN) Daily Journal. Click here for Minnesota Public Radio's Minnesota Today Show with Michael Caputo leading a spirited discussion on the 4-Day Week. Michael and his e-followers go into studies on the academic impact of the 4-day week (not many studies, a Louisiana study showed a drop in grades, and a New Mexico student showed an increase in grades because most of the students weren't doing much school-work on Fridays because so many students took long bus trips to Friday sports contests). See Four Day? Year Round? Early Start? When Should Kids Go To School?, Minnesota Today with Michael Caputo. MPR Radio.
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What do you do if your City is 30% Muslim, it's Ramadan, it's hot, and you're trying to run two-a-days to get ready for the football season? One school solved this problem by practicing at 11:00 at night. That's right, 11:00 at night. During Ramadan, Muslims can't eat or drink from sunup to sundown. So, rather than have dehydrated players, Fordson High School shifted the time of practice. See Dearborn Fordson Coach Changes Practice To Honor Ramadan by Mick McCabe, Detroit Free Press.
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Tennessee Little League coach attacks umpire. We continue to see youth coaches demonstrate an appalling lack of emotional control. At some point, we must ask if there is a better way of screening the people who coach young kids. See Blount County Little League Coach Arrested For Attacking Umpire by Josh Ault, WATE.com
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A high school team suffers one of the strangest medical incidents we've seen over the past few years. Players from McMinnville High School Caught Compartment Syndrome. Compartment syndrome is a rare soft-tissue condition that manifested in extreme swelling, and excessive creatine kinase levels in the McMinnville players' blood, a condition that could cause kidney damage. A number of McMinnville players needed surgery to reduce swelling in their triceps. The cause of the illness is a mystery, leading to speculation on everything from heat to an intense weight workout to excessive creatine use as potential causes. See Two McMinnville Players Released; Others 'Waiting For the Numbers To Drop' by Jerry Ulmer, The Oregonian; Mystery Illness Hits Oregon High School Team, by Dr. Jennifer Ashton, CBS News.
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The down economy leads California schools to charge athletic participation fees. However, California has a free education clause in its Constitution. These fees don't pass constitutional muster in California. The constitutional bar doesn't stop schools from trying, though. Some Los Angeles schools tried to impose voluntary bus fees this fall. Their superintendent put the kibosh on these plans. A number of schools throughout the state charge students for pe equipment. That's a no-no, too. Of course, schools have gotten away with these practices for years, but when someone complains too loudly or hires a lawyer, the whole deck of cards comes crashing down. For San Diego's problems, see Student Fees Persist Despite Law by Tanya Sierra, San Diego Union-Tribune
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Alfreda Harris Recognized By Basketball Hall of Fame: We know the Basketball Hall of Fame is about the Pippens, Jordans, Magics and Birds. But, most of us don't know that it's also about Alfreda Harris. That's right. Alfreda Harris! Ms. Harris received the Basketball Hall of Fame's Mannie Jackson award for lifelong accomplishments on behalf of her community. She's what basketball and education are all about. Harris is a Boston school board member, and former JC basketball. She has been a vital part of the Boston community, molding and saving countless lives through her SAT Prep Program, her city after-school basketball programs, her work with Reebok to bring computers and tutors into areas sorely lacking in educational essentials. Of course, she's done far more than this. So if you were wondering who the 72-year old lady was who received an award from the Basketball Hall of Fame, well, she's the embodiment of all the great people who use sports and education to save communities. See High Honors For Alfreda Harris: Hall of Famer In More Ways Than One by Joe Fitzgerald, Boston Herald; and Alfreda Harris Recognized by Basketball Hall of Fame, Boston Public Schools Blog.
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Collins's Latest Article In Print Now: See Defenseless Against Out-Of-Line Barbs Online, Referee Magazine, Law Column, July 2010, page 68 (National Association of Sports Officials).
Recent Bad Acts: for more see the Bad Acts page.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune Won A Legal Battle to Get Test Results on Jason Chighizola. The results confirmed that Chighizola tested positive for steroids in 2008 when he beat a rival coach to a bloody pulp following a baseball game in a 8-year-old's league. This one has it all: steroids, a coach losing it in a post-game handshake line, a grown man going nuts in a league for little children, and, yes, the two 8-year-old teams were the Yankees and the Red Sox. If it wasn't a true story, you wouldn't believe it. Chighizola was ultimately convicted of battery, and we can only hope that he never coaches anywhere again. He's a danger to us all - and to himself. See Slidell Youth Baseball Coach Who Beat Rival Coach Tested Positive For Steroids by Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, Times-Picayune.
Parents Fight Gets 8-Year-Old League Soccer Teams DQd in Canadian Tournament. See Under-8 Soccer Teams Disqualified As Parents Fight, Regina Leader-Post.
This website focuses heavily on bad acts in sports, but every now and then we remind our readers that wherever you find high stakes and a need to win you can find cheating. When you combine that with racial issues, poor media coverage, and, yes, some cheating, you’ve got a scandal. In the Atlanta Public School system, test scores soared, some irregularities in testing were found, the local media misstated the degree of testing irregularities, but test scores did drop the year after the irregularities were found. It’s a school scandal, but it sounds just like a sports scandal. Nobody is covered in glory on this one. See Cheating Scandal Haunts Atlanta School Chief by Shaila Dewan, New York Times, August 7, 2010.
WFAS New York's Tony Fiorino, host of WFAS New York's Let Them Play show, describes how youth parents can very easily have incidents. Coach Tony was watching his 9 year old daughter's soccer game when trouble broke out. Hear Coach Tony describe the tension amongst the parents, and the loony dad who ran on the field; click here to jump directly to the show.
Latest Administrative Information
4-Day Week - Will it Help School/Sports? The down economy has led some school districts to discuss four-day work weeks. How does this impact sports? Pelican Rapids High School in Minnesota has just started the four-day week, and their athletic staff has some interesting observations. See 4-Day Week "Little Effect" On PR Athletics by John George, Fergus Falls (MN) Daily Journal. Click here for Minnesota Public Radio's Minnesota Today Show with Michael Caputo leading a spirited discussion on the 4-Day Week. Michael and his e-followers go into studies on the academic impact of the 4-day week (not many studies, a Louisiana study showed a drop in grades, and a New Mexico student showed an increase in grades because most of the students weren't doing much school-work on Fridays because so many students took long bus trips to Friday sports contests). See Four Day? Year Round? Early Start? When Should Kids Go To School?, Minnesota Today with Michael Caputo. MPR Radio.
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Vanderbilt University and Nashville Public Schools Work Together For Free Athletic Health Care. See High School Physicals Program Surges by Leslie Hast, Vanderbilt University Medical Center Reporter. The combination of tight budgets and an increased focus on athletes' health make this a model for the type of programs that will allow sports to continue to thrive.
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Sacramento, CA - August 12, 2010 - The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) took major strides toward resolving a bat controversy, and improving bat safety.
The controversy started with a catastrophic injury to 16-year old Gunnar Sandberg, a Marin Catholic High School pitcher who was hit in the head with a line drive and nearly killed. Gunnar is still recovering from his head injuries some 6 months after he was hit. Following Gunnar's injury, Jared Huffman, a California State Assemblyman from Marin, introduced legislation mandating wood bats.
Huffman dropped his legislation after the CIF announced that it will require metal bats that meet a new safety standard to be implemented immediately. Those bats were going to be nationally required in 2012. The new metal bats must meet the Batted Ball Coefficient of Restitution Performance Standard (BBCOR), a standard that ensures that metal bats react more like wood bats.
The CIF went a lot further than instituting the BBCOR standard. The CIF joined the NCAA in banning composite bats, and ruled that new bats also must be certified as tamper proof, a vital certification since many older bats could be "rolled", a process that allowed them to be altered to exceed the old bat safety standards, thereby allowing batters to gain an edge and putting pitchers at risk of being injured by a "hot" bat. The CIF also will begin work on creating safety standards for pitcher and fielder protective head-gear. This will likely be controversial, but other sports have been through mandatory safety equipment controversies and survived.
For the latest, see Deal Reached on Metal Bats, Protective Headgear by Marisa Lagos, San Francisco Chronicle, August 12, 2010, page A-1. For more, see Prep Baseball: Marin Catholic Pitcher In Induced Coma After Being Hit In The Head By Line Drive by John Swartz, Marin Independent Journal, March 15, 2010; Serious Injury Renews Call To Ban Metal Bats, KTVU Channel 2, San Francisco, March 15, 2010; and Marin Boy's Injury Puts Focus On Metal Bats by Carolyn Jones, San Francisco Chronicle page A-1, March 23, 2010.
Gunnar's league played the 2010 season with wood bats after Gunnar's injury. Before the CIF took action, Gunnar's league and his California regional Section addressed the metal bat vs. wood bat controversy. The Section considered a complete metal bat ban, but opted against it. See Landmark Decision Coming On Metal Bats by Mitch Stephens, San Francisco Chronicle, April 20, 2010 page B2; Gil Lemmon, the CIF North Coast Section Commissioner, prepares for the vote by putting together one of the best compilations of bat injury research around. ; NCS Rejects Proposed Ban On Metal Bats by Mitch Stephens, San Francisco Chronicle, April 27, 2010 page B6.
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Collins discusses steroids on City Visions Radio.
2008 - NFHS Updates The Case For High School Activities. Sports and co-curricular activities develop better students and only costs one to three percent of a school's budget.
Academic/Recruiting Information
For more detailed information see the Academic and Recruting Issues Page and see the Making The Case For High School Sports Page
The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA), and the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) team up to produce video: The Role of The Principal In Interscholastic Athletics. Click here to download.
For complete administrative information see the administration page.
Latest Steroid Information - Click here for the steroids page
The few states that had steroid testing programs have seen those programs either eliminated or decimated by budget cuts. However, the Preston, Idaho School District has instituted random drug testing of athletes. Preston isn't going after steroids, though. They're looking for marijuana, prescription and recreational drugs. It's not steroid testing, but it's also not as expensive as steroid testing. Preston estimates that it can conduct its program for $500 per year. See Preston High School Athletes Will Now Be Randomly Drug Tested, reported by Michelle Costa, Local News 8, Eastern Idaho/Western Wyoming.
Want the latest steroid info without having to weed through all the steroid sites? See
Science Daily - This is a science publication so you'll have to enter "Steroids" in the search bar. One of the problems with sites such as Steroid.com and isteroids.com is that they're geared to people who want to know about using steroids. Sometimes such sites can be off-putting as they immerse one in the ugly world of steroid users. Science Daily is pure science. It's not always exciting, but it's extremely credible.
HEALTH
"Take It Like A Man:" The words of a New York coach, asking to be sued for 5 million dollars. Remember, 'tis far better to apply first aid than to disparage the athlete whose finger is broken in three places. See "Take It Like A Man" by Edmund DeMarche, New York Post.
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2009-10 High School Injury Data Is In. See 2009-10 Center For Injury Research and Policy's National High School Sports-Related Injury Surveillance Study and
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What do you do if your City is 30% Muslim, it's Ramadan, it's hot, and you're trying to run two-a-days to get ready for the football season? One school solved this problem by practicing at 11:00 at night. That's right, 11:00 at night. During Ramadan, Muslims can't eat or drink from sunup to sundown. So, rather than have dehydrated players, Fordson High School shifted the time of practice. See Dearborn Fordson Coach Changes Practice To Honor Ramadan by Mick McCabe, Detroit Free Press.
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A high school team suffers one of the strangest medical incidents we've seen over the past few years. Players from McMinnville High School Caught Compartment Syndrome. Compartment syndrome is a rare soft-tissue condition that manifested in extreme swelling, and excessive creatine kinase levels in the McMinnville players' blood, a condition that could cause kidney damage. A number of McMinnville players needed surgery to reduce swelling in their triceps. The cause of the illness is a mystery, leading to speculation on everything from heat to an intense weight workout to excessive creatine use as potential causes. See Two McMinnville Players Released; Others 'Waiting For the Numbers To Drop' by Jerry Ulmer, The Oregonian; Mystery Illness Hits Oregon High School Team, by Dr. Jennifer Ashton, CBS News.
NCAA Sickle-Cell Trait Testing Gearing Up For August Start. See Lawsuit Spurred NCAA To Screen All Athletes by Brett Zarda, USA Today. The NCAA may be testing but they haven't figured out what to do with the information. They better figure it out because approximately 10% of the African-American population has sickle cell trait. Will the NCAA bar them from participation? Will it make them sign waivers? Let's face it, the people who have sickle cell trait have been participating in sports for quite some time, and the health cost of their participation has been one death per year. The NCAA doesn't require EKGs and Echos and we have far more deaths per year from heart problems. Why not test for that? Because it costs too much. That's right, it only costs $10 to screen for sickle cell trait, and the testing is done at birth so most colleges won't even have to test for the trait if they order up the birth records. Cost of an EKG: approximately $88. Cost of life: priceless? No, no. There is a price cap on safety.
The Indiana Sports Concussion Network: Taking a Stand For Responsible Health Care. Indiana uses ImPact Baseline testing to battle concussions. For more, visit the Methodist Sports Medicine Concussion Management web page. Methodist Sports Medicine does impact testing for $5 per student, and they claim to be the exclusive certified concussion management consultant in Indiana.
Latest Sportsmanship Information
Alfreda Harris Recognized By Basketball Hall of Fame: We know the Basketball Hall of Fame is about the Pippens, Jordans, Magics and Birds. But, most of us don't know that it's also about Alfreda Harris. That's right. Alfreda Harris! Ms. Harris received the Basketball Hall of Fame's Mannie Jackson award for lifelong accomplishments on behalf of her community. She's what basketball and education are all about. Harris is a Boston school board member, and former JC basketball. She has been a vital part of the Boston community, molding and saving countless lives through her SAT Prep Program, her city after-school basketball programs, her work with Reebok to bring computers and tutors into areas sorely lacking in educational essentials. Of course, she's done far more than this. So if you were wondering who the 72-year old lady was who received an award from the Basketball Hall of Fame, well, she's the embodiment of all the great people who use sports and education to save communities. See High Honors For Alfreda Harris: Hall of Famer In More Ways Than One by Joe Fitzgerald, Boston Herald; and Alfreda Harris Recognized by Basketball Hall of Fame, Boston Public Schools Blog.
Click Here For What Kids Wish Their Parents Knew About Sportsmanship - From The MHSAA website (note - this video has been licensed to high school state associations throughout the country; contact your state's sports governing body and you can probably get a copy to use at your school).
Visit the sportsmanship page for more information.
Latest Officiating Information
If you're an official and you're moving to a new state, you need a quick way to reach your new state's Officials' Association. Links to All 50 States Officials' Association Are Available on the Officials Page at the Links Bookmark.
If you run a league or you're an official, and you keep hearing about independent contractor problems, this 2008 article from Athletic Business Magazine explains the key issues quite well. See Law & Risk: Contract Law by Michael Popke, Athletic Business Magazine, September 2008. This may be an old article, but it's a very current issue.
Who Says Umpires Aren't Inspiring? Read About The Umpire Who Fought Back From A Heart Attack. See Two Local Umpires Will Strike At State Tournament Spence, Crossen Will Make The Trip To Kinston by Jonas Pope, IV, Roanoke Rapids Daily Herald.
Houston, TX – January 14, 2010 - TASO vs. UIL. A battle for control of Texas’s sports officials. For three decades, Texas sports officials registered through the Texas Association of Sports Officials. This school year, the University Interscholastic League, the organization that governs Texas high school sports decided that they wanted control. Well, as you can imagine, TASO didn’t look too kindly on being run out of business. The fight for Texas was on. This is a long, ugly battle. For details, see Officials’ Tug of War Reaches New Level by San Khan, Jr., Houston Chronicle, January 14, 2010.
Assaults Against Officials: We Always hear about it, but how often does it really happen and how wide-spread a problem is it? Visit the Officials Information page for two statistical surveys and the NASO Special Report.
Latest Collins Articles In Print Now.
Defenseless Against Out-Of-Line Barbs Online, Referee Magazine, Law Column, July 2010, page 68 (National Association of Sports Officials).
Contact the National Association of Sports Officials or visit the Articles Page for more Collins Articles.
FEATURED QUOTES AND APPEARANCES
Keep Your Bylaws Up-To-Date, NASO-On Board, August 2010, page 4 (National Association of Sports Officials).
Insights Into The NASO Board Room, It’s Official: Monthly Newsletter of The National Association of Sports Officials, June 2010, page N7.
Heart of A Champion is a character education program that uses research based tools geared to reach today's "sight and sound" generation. Click here for a sample educator's guide.